Відео

Those are great points, I'm used to looking at the universal significance of such works, but it's very much about the local history and institutions also as you say. My background is not in classics so there are certainly many things I will have overlooked in this analysis.

It seems arbitrary to me because I don't follow the logic that takes us from the One which is apeiron (unlimited), to a discrete hierarchy which involves gods we can name and relate to one another. It seems like a kind of post hoc attempt to rescue the Greek mythological tradition, following Plato and his successors' metaphysical observations which might have undermined that tradition.

@@FirstActuality Referring to a basic geometric circle, would you call the circumference 'arbitrary?' In a certain sense it is apeiron, an 'unlimited' loop. These are all relative terms to make a simple analogy for what is certainly not relative. So, I think it is best to keep in mind, likewise, that when Proclus seems to produce a discrete hierarchy from 'the One' this is not dogmatic or absolute, but, again, relative terms meant for the purposes of analysis. And certainly not arbitrary, in my opinion, because since there is no absolute center or circumference in and through the henadic manifold, I imagine the 'hierarchy' can shift around in dialectic activity and maintain a somewhat porous structure.

@@josephpercy1558 Just to give a bit more clarification: my initial claim about arbitrariness, at a higher level, was reference to the fact that Proclus has to assert a distinction without difference between the henads, since there is nothing that they possess that is not common to all, and since they indwell one another absolutely. Their "multiplicity" is, I think, tautological for the same reason that there is nothing differentiating them from one another. If this idea of multiplicity is communicated to beings via the Nous (or however the chain of causality works), what exactly is its content? I hope the question makes sense.

@@FirstActuality Henads don't "possess" anything in common. In their super-essential existence they exist as is beyond substance with which to formally or essentially compare or contrast. We could use the word "possess" in the context of the gods only inasmuch as it pertains to their powers/activities/energies in the ontic realms. Anything beyond discursive logic does indeed seem arbitrary and requires a transcendent kind of faith [pistis] beyond the varieties that generate through being in the world. Let's say that at the "levels" of the henads there is indeed what seems like an arbitrary multiplicity wherein there are distinctions without a difference. But that's the point. What we can see from Proclus is that they "exist" super-essentially in their simplicity; that this huparxis is irreducible and structurally very different than Being as such. I'm looking at select passages from Butlers' _The Gods and Being in Proclus_ and I think that's the gist of it, although I could be off the mark.

@@josephpercy1558 The passage I had in mind is from Plotinus, but I believe it is restated by Proclus (and cited by Butler in his article on Plotinian henadology) 'each God is all the Gods coming together into one [συνόντες εἰς ἕν]; they are other [ἄλλοι] in their powers, but in that one‑many they are all one, or rather the one <deity> is all [ὁ εἷς πάντες]; for he does not fall short if all those come to be. They are all together and each one again apart, in position without separation [ἐν στάσει ἀδιαστάτῳ], possessing no perceptible shape -for if they did, one would be in one place and one in another, and each would no longer be all in himself - nor does each God have parts different [ἄλλα] from himself belonging to other Gods than himself, nor is each whole [ὅλον] like a power cut up [κερματισθεῖσα], which is as large as the measure of its parts.' As Butler puts it 'The unity of the divine manifold rests in all the Gods being in each, rather than all in one, if by that we understood a singularity that, as Plotinus puts it, would “fall short” itself insofar as the many are many, that is, relative to which multiplicity would be an ontological decline, which would be the case if the divine manifold were structured like a whole and its parts.''

There would be a sharp distinction between traditional Shavite and Shakta forms of "left hand path" and this post-Blavatsky/Crowley modern occult idea calling itself by the same name.

I should note that this same view is shared by Christian philosophers like Dionysius and Cusanus - Cusanus writes on the Trinity in On Learned Ignorance, and in the same work demonstrates that the Absolute must transcend all categories

Thanks for the comment. I think you are equivocating on the term "person" here, which iirc in the video I stated that the Church has a specific definition of that term which doesn't hang on classical metaphysics. If not this video I discuss it in a video on "the great triad". The only thing that "conditions" the persons of the Trinity is their eternal relations, so I don't accept the assumption that this leads to contingency within the Godhead. In the Orthodox view, personhood is the mode in which essences have their being and existence. I don't really see the problem here, or the thread of the argument being made? For instance I would never appeal to the consensus of muslims, neoplatonists etc. for my theological insights, because my starting point is not natural theology or a foundationalist epistemology. Incidentally, I would ask, how could anything totally undifferentiated give rise to something other than itself? Namely the cosmos.

"The Absolute cannot be a person" - as if Hindus don't believe in divine personages such as Shiva in Shaivism and Vishnu in Vaishnavara.

If it's not listed on google, you can definitely find it in the pdf library on the Orthodox Christian discord server: discord.gg/orthodoxchristian

That’s pretty stupid. “If everyone gets rescued off of a sinking ship than nobody gets saved”. You can only be happy from being saved by a sinking ship if the people you love are drowned to death.

{1,6} {pend, piece} 5 Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be benevolent; they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt with. The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent; they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with. May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows? 'Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power; 'Tis moved again, and sends forth air the more. Much speech to swift exhaustion lead we see; Your inner being guard, and keep it free.

there's nothing inherently wrong with the term analogia entis, so long as we don't understand it to refer to the divine essence - as if it is a "being" that can be conceptualised and analysed. This is an issue with absolute divine simplicity more than anything else.

@@FirstActuality Great thank you

What did he say about the number zero? I don't remember.

@@asamiyashin444 It’s in his book on calculus

He distinguishes the metaphysical zero and mathematical zero in “the multiple states of being”

I'm going back and forth on that depending on my mood. When I am clear / reasonable in my mind, I am with you. But then when I am in "pattern seeking"-mode, I literally can't unsee all those connections that probably aren't there in the first place. Theoretically I know how anachronistic and backwards projecting the patterns I "find" / "create" must look to reasonable people. It must look like insanity from the outside, but from the inside it feels like I am onto something, and I struggle with letting go my "idee fixe": reconstructing meaning for my own self should be my own business, but strangely I get so missionary about it, that I just have to share my "finds"...

The Stealing of the Sampo to me always sounds like the unlocking of the crust from the mantle: the swaying pictured cover is the zodiak, whose position begins to change witht the tilting over of the axis. ua-cam.com/video/PgHIuksuHQk/v-deo.htmlsi=taD7cnMif9Q4Fx8t&t=16433

Compare the animation of the Taurid Meteor stream with the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona: the Earth is the runner, and the Meteor stream are the bulls running down that alley, and I am pretty sure we have been trampled at least once... Animation ua-cam.com/video/_WRtLHS82cA/v-deo.htmlsi=XDQzTseds4W6NHSX Pamplona ua-cam.com/video/cQzmlgPvuLY/v-deo.htmlsi=TSiLzwbDjiL_o07a&t=188

Whenever there is a Pillar or a Tree, or a navel of the earth stone in one of the old myths, my ears perk up. We are retelling and re-enacting the trauma (as in the case of the running with the bulls and the erection of a tree, or being nailed to a tree (Christ) or hung from a tree (Odin). That our religion deals with death and resurrection is not because of individual death and fear and psychology: it is about the death and rebirth of human civilization. Graham Hancock is right: we are a species with amnesia. We lost the original meaning of a lot of our traditions and myths. I agree that for maintaining a civilization the personal interpretation of religion and myth and how to lead a life well lived is more important than the catastrophist reading, but about once every 12000 years, the original catastrophist reading becomes relevant again, even for the survival of our own civilization right now: As Randall Carlson has it: some people had foreknowledge of the flood and build an Ark, because it is a reoccurring event. ua-cam.com/video/CWs5SW2p1yU/v-deo.htmlsi=Ok3yIcDe13zSC81U&t=1964 IMHO It’s a shame that the secret initiates of the diverse ancient mystery cults went more for drug induced ego-death (- read the fantastic Brian Muraresku “The immortality key” on “dying before dying”), and forgot about the original catastrophist interpretation. It is a shame that the Freemasons and Rosicrucians seem to go the same way: individual enlightenment and improvement over preserving the story of the original death and resurrection of human civilization.

It’s also a brilliant book for folks who have read some of the myths, as it links the similar cross-cultural themes swirling about throughout history yet separated by oceans. Hamlet’s Mill is the next logical step for any fan of Joseph Campbell trying to suss out the source of the monomyth, catastrophists like Velikovksy, Hapgood, Carlson and Hancock, or even the electric universe. Even Einstein was into crustal displacement (writing the foreword to Hapgood’s book) and worlds in collision in his latter years. It’s impossible not too see the patterns you mentioned after reading all of these sources. It’s the same symbolism repeated everywhere - the hero with a thousand faces - and it’s fascinating! The false Abrhamaic religion-based history of civilization we’ve been taught in school is finally losing its dictatorial grip on society and its propped-up tenured gatekeepers are slowly disappearing, as was foretold during this transition of the Ages. The immediate future should be interesting, provided the globalist cult inevitably fails in suckering us into their digital panopticon wet dream, or the Sun doesn’t burp on us again anytime soon. 😂

He clearly gave up after chapter 1 and decided to make this video.

Big if true

You just may have autism. I'm not doubting the truth of my claim. Everything you said is an insane stretch from the linguistics, you don't know how languages work. Because gad is pronounced God does not allude to the idea that God in every sense must be about the pagan deity Gad. Correlation isn't causation. Check out inspiring philosophy!

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate your engagement with my video! I think your criticisms are valid, however I am prompted to ask what principle differentiates the forms if it is not potency simpliciter? If this is the case how do we understand their diversity to be grounded in necessity, because it would seem to entail a form of modal collapse to say so. The multiplicity of forms are conceived of as necessary emanations but they are only multiple insofar as they are differentiated by potency, which is supposed to constitute the contingent. It seems in that respect the forms violate the law of the excluded middle by being necessary emanations and at the same time dependent on the contingent (matter) for their diversity, though I could be mistaken there. I recognise this isn't a direct engagement with your comment but perhaps you have an answer. For Christians I would say that we ground the very contingency of the logoi in the divine will which is spontaneous and free (creating ex nihilo) and therefore we don't conflate them or lump them in with the necessary categories and emanations that are proper to the divine nature, namely the divine attributes. This grounding of contingency in the divine will is a theme in Athanasius for instance because he was adamant that the Second person of the Trinity is a necessary being and not a product of the Father's will (which by inference would make the Son contingent). This was a direct response to the Arians who regarded Him as the latter. A scholar I read recently noticed this line of thought in St Gregory of Nyssa also, to the point where the scholar suggested that Gregory regards the divine will as the principle grounding matter. I believe he reached that conclusion following the same rough line of reasoning.

​@@FirstActuality Orthodox Christian metaphysics is the only system outside Platonism/Pythagoreanism that I find compelling, so I appreciate your engagement. This would be explained in the emanative process itself, which proceeds in a triadic pattern of limit-unlimited-mixture. Limit may best refer to essence, Unlimited to energy and Mixture to work (although they mean more than that). So in this case, the One may be represented by the principle of Limit, from which proceeds the Unlimited (energetic expression of the One, the emanation) which reverts back upon its cause (the One) to form the Mixture-in this case, a Form (Intelligible God). This Form (limit) then produces (unlimited) an effluence of intelligibility which reverts upon its cause (the Form itself) to form the next Mixture-in this case, a Paradigm (or Intellective God). These Intellective Gods stand just above the level of Soul, which is where free will and choice is grounded (avoiding modal collapse in the Platonic system). So while each Form is (eternally) generated by the One, they are grounded directly in the One itself and can be thought of as the cataphatic manifestations of the apophatic First Principle. One could look at each Form as a "unifying power" of the One. In my mind, this is equivalent to the metaphysics of the Son, while being eternally generated by the Father, still being a necessary being.

specifically I'm referring to the dyad of act and potency. There's nothing wrong with using the term dyad itself in other contexts, or indeed triad, which is the Greek word for the Trinity.

read Christianity and the Metaphysics of Logic, chapter 4 of Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition by Philip Sherrard

I think Dr David Bradshaw might be someone who would know about this, since he studied as a physicist before turning to theology. I do think there is a connection, but it's not dependent upon a theory of physics as such. In the same way that the divine attributes are considered energies, natural attributes of creatures are energies too. So the weight of an object would be an energy, and its density for example. St Gregory of Nyssa in his discussion of angels suggests that materiality or physicality is just one attribute or property among others. So in a reductive sense you could describe creatures as bundles of such properties/energies, but that would not exhaustively define them. In Aristotelian terms only animate life has natural essences, so rocks and tables and such things do not.